The rain poured mercilessly over the withered rose garden of the Sakamaki estate, washing away the scent of blood that clung to the soil like a lover unwilling to part. Ayato stood alone beneath the storm, his emerald eyes glowing like sharpened blades through the downpour. His shirt hung off one shoulder, torn from a scuffle with his brothers, a squabble turned deadly, as it always did.

But this night was different.

Something had awakened.

It began with a strange girl who wandered into the manor, silent, soft-spoken, and wearing the faint fragrance of night-blooming jasmine. She wasn’t like the others. She didn’t cry, didn’t plead. Instead, she looked into Ayato’s eyes and asked him not who he was, but why he existed.

Ayato had laughed, brushing it off with arrogance. “Obviously, because I’m the best, Chichinashi. Ore-sama is perfect.”

But her gaze lingered, unshaken. And that unsettled him.

Days passed. He found himself thinking about her, stalking the shadows to catch glimpses of her smile, the way she sat near the old piano where he used to play before everything turned cold. She was breaking through walls he didn’t even know existed.

Then, she vanished.

Something darker had crept into the mansion. A presence ancient and hungry, a remnant of the First Progenitor’s curse, sealed deep beneath the foundation by Karlheinz himself. The girl’s blood had been the key, her presence a trigger.

Now, the curse slithered like a mist through the corridors. Ayato’s senses were burning.

He stood at the edge of the garden, rain sliding down his bare chest, a pulse of fury and desperation in his veins.

“She’s mine,” he growled.

Lightning cracked above.

“They want to take her? Then let them try.”

With fangs bared and heart ablaze, Ayato disappeared into the night, ready to burn the world down for her.

Because love, in the world of monsters, was just another word for possession.